Bond set at $5 million in Kansas slaying

Story Highlights

• NEW: Bond set at $5 million for Edwin Hall, 26, in Kansas woman's death • NEW: Mother says slain teen was "all-American girl" • NEW: Neighbor says he called police after recognizing suspect in video • Body of Kelsey Smith, 18, found across state line in Missouri

Adjust font size:

(CNN) -- A Kansas man appeared before a judge Thursday on charges he abducted a teenager from an Overland Park, Kansas, store parking lot and killed her.

Edwin Roy Hall, 26, of Olathe, Kansas, appeared via closed-circuit television from the New Century Adult Detention Facility in Gardner, Kansas.

He told the judge he was not sure if he would hire his own attorney or needed a public defender, CNN affiliate KMBC reported. He is due back in court in a week and is being held on $5 million bond.

Hall is charged with first-degree murder and aggravated kidnapping in the death of Kelsey Smith, 18.

Smith, a recent high school graduate, had been missing since Saturday evening, when she went shopping at a Target store for a gift for her boyfriend.

Smith's parents, Missy and Greg Smith, joined by their daughter's boyfriend, John Biersmith, shared memories of their daughter with CNN's "Larry King Live" Thursday night.

"She was life," Missy Smith said. "When you think of an all-American girl, she was it."

They said Kelsey had planned to study veterinary medicine at Kansas State University.

They also said no one in the family was familiar with Hall.

"Kelsey did nothing wrong that night," Missy Smith said. "She went to Target to get a gift. She was coming home. ... It just happened. She didn't do anything wrong."

During the search for the teen, police released a pair of videos. The first showed Smith leaving a store at about the same time as a man with a goatee. The second, which is of poor quality, shows a woman police believe to be Smith being forced into a car by a man. (Watch the struggle in the parking lot)

Smith's body was found Wednesday afternoon near a lake in a park across the state line in Missouri. Police have not said how she died. (Map)

Hall, from Olathe, Kansas, would face 25 years to life in prison if convicted of the murder charge and at least 12 years on the aggravated kidnapping charge, District Attorney Phill Kline said at a news conference late Wednesday.

"The community has lost a vibrant and promising life, and the family has suffered an unimaginable tragedy," Kline said, hours after police located the teen's body.

"I realize this is not the preferred conclusion," Overland Park Police Chief John Douglass said. "While we cannot give (the Smith family) their daughter back, we can at least give them justice."

The police chief said Hall's arrest "was the result of an intense investigation over the last four days."

Hall was considered a "person of interest" after one of the more than 500 tips given to authorities detailed an individual matching the description of a man caught by surveillance cameras in the department store parking lot.

"When we saw the videotape he came right behind her from the parking lot and it appeared he followed her there," Douglass said of Smith's apparent abduction.

Another videotape released by police earlier in the week shows Smith entering and leaving the store. Other footage shows a young man with a goatee leaving the store shortly after she exited.

Later, a woman who appears to be Smith can be seen putting packages into her car when someone runs toward her and shoves her in the car. The car then pulls away.

"The person we believe who was the person of interest leaving the Target store was Hall," Douglass said. "We have located the truck we believe matched the description."

Hall's neighbor, Cameron Migues, told KMBC he noticed the resemblance to Hall, but "it was when I saw the truck" that he decided to call a tip line. "It was too much of a coincidence," Migues said.